Only Romney can hurt Romney in campaign

Mitt Romney came roaring out of Florida – and out of the month of January – with more momentum, money and mojo than any of his fellow Republican contenders. He eviscerated Newt Gingrich, along with Gingrich’s confident assertion that if he could just get Romney one-on-one he could beat him.

South Carolina now looks like an outlier; one even gets the sense that if Republican primary voters there had a do-over they’d still punish Romney for John King’s temerity in asking about the details of one of Gingrich’s divorces.

Moreover, February looks like a long, arid stretch for Gingrich and Rick Santorum, and very fertile patch for Romney. Four states – Nevada, Maine, Colorado and Minnesota – hold caucuses this week. The former Massachusetts governor ran well in those places four years ago, and has the well-oiled organization to do well in them again.

Then it’s on to Missouri, a nonbinding primary – a beauty contest, really – and Romney is not only the prettiest of the remaining Republicans, but the best organized: Gingrich, in fact, didn’t even manage to get himself on the ballot.

Only one debate is presently scheduled in February. That’s the format that has favored Gingrich thus far. And even though Romney righted himself in the last Florida debate, don’t look for him to be lining up any more debates than he has to.

And it’s an unforgiving map right up until the end of the month. On February’s penultimate day, two significant states, Arizona and Michigan, hold primaries. Michigan is a home away from home for Romney: He grew up there and his father was a popular three-term governor of Michigan in the 1960s.

That leaves Arizona, where Gingrich may have to make his stand. If the early polls are to be believed, Newt has about as much chance against Romney in Arizona on Feb. 28 as the Clanton brothers did against Doc Holliday at the OK Corral.

There is, however, one Republican candidate who can give Mitt Romney fits – and he started off February doing just that. That candidate’s name is also Mitt Romney. He’s the one who seems to be congenitally unable to keep his foot out of his own mouth, particularly on matters pertaining to his personal wealth, and his sensitivity to those less well-off than himself. That is to say, nearly everyone in the country.

The latest was an utterly unforced error in which Romney said he was unconcerned about poor people in this country, a sentiment that was an immediate sensation on Twitter and YouTube and a thousand Democratic websites.

Romney has done much right in this campaign, but the signs of this perplexing propensity arose early on. Last June, after listening to unemployed Floridians tell their individual tales of woe in trying to find work, Romney quipped. “I’m also unemployed,” adding in a joke that fell quite flat: “I’m networking. I have my sight on a particular job.” In August, Romney responded to a heckler who wanted him to raise taxes on corporations by saying. “Corporations are people, friend.”

In challenging the accuracy of a statement Texas Gov. Rick Perry had made criticizing Romney during a debate, Romney offered to bet Perry $10,000 he was wrong. Weeks later, speaking to crowds in New Hampshire, Romney claimed that he, too, had feared the “pink slip” during his life. The same week he said, “I enjoy firing people,” a line that was reprised Thursday after his surprise endorsement from Donald Trump, who is famous on his reality television show for telling contestants, “You’re fired!”

And last week, while stumbling over whether to release his taxes, Romney said, “I get speaking fees from time to time, but not very much.” Well, “not very much” turned out to be $374,000 in one year.

Romney and his defenders have been quick to say that several of these remarks were twisted out of context, and this was at least partially true.

The quip, “I enjoy firing people,” was actually part of a longer sentence in which Romney was advising a questioner at a town-hall meeting about dropping a health insurer for bad service.

And the snippet about poor people wasn’t entirely fair, either: His full statement, delivered in the context of his ideas about bolstering the American middle class was: “I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs a repair, I’ll fix it. I’m not concerned about the very rich; they’re doing just fine.”

Nonetheless, Gingrich pounced on Romney’s remark, as did Obama campaign strategists. The question was why Romney keeps giving them an opening.